Alas,we disagree again...

>Again, much like the debate I've been having with Gryph: it's well
>within the realm of possibility that there'd be no effect on your
>thought processes whatsoever. But we're mucking about with serious
>stuff, plugging a human brain directly into a computer, and I'd not be
>so certain that there won't be any side effects. Even a sufficiently
>godlike and realistic GUI would have its own little quirks, its own
>ways of operating, and given enough time you'd start to act by those
>rules.

You reminded me of Snow Crash. Stephenson argues that reading and the use of language causes a reprogramming of the human brain. Learn another language, your brain gets reprogrammed. Learn to read (or more accurrately, reason) that physical shapes carry symbolic reading, and your brain is reprogrammed again.

I act (symbolically) through the medium of language and follow its rules. We colloqually call them grammar and spelling. They help make our imperfect communication intelligble.

Computer "language" is just that -- symbolically rendered grammar and spelling for a program (activity or set of related activities) or operating system (cosmology and dictionary/encyclopedia).

Thus, cyberware would follow an imperfect cosmology with it's own special syntax and grammar that would then try to communicate through some translation to your brain's current language programming. The translation is likely to be inaccurate. Kinda like the Delewares of Pennsilvania giving away all North America to the Penns because their translators sucked. Or in a slighly more advanced version, trying to use one English word to completely translate "quiero".

I'm not afraid of learning languages, even though I know they are messing with my brain. The words "nichevo" and "duck!" cause specific physical reactions without my conscious thought. I suspect bioware will cause the same results in its users. Of course I had to discipline myself to learn so speak Russian and Spanish. Future users of bioware will need to do the same.

philosophically,
t.

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.